Gajalakshmi Paramasivam
23
July 2020
African Americans and
Indian Tamils of Lanka
The
path of self-purification is hard and steep. One has to become absolutely
passion-free in thought, speech and action to rise above the opposing currents
of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as
yet that triple purity in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is
why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To
conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical
conquest of the world by the force of arms. – Mahatma Gandhi
To my mind – the above message is about losing
duality and if one does have duality - one side needs to be blocked by an Equal
and Opposite power at that level. That is a fundamental value in Democracy. One
may be clever intellectually and/or through armed power. But to be eligible to
govern one has to include the less clever person as part of oneself in Autocracy or come down
to that person’s level in Democracy. Gandhi did the latter. By demoting his
status without any return benefits including in thought, Gandhi automatically converted his
contribution (work and sacrifice) to pure Energy. The rest was delivered
through the system of truth.
Dual citizenship bans us from representing the
People of a country at national level – because we want the best of both worlds.
To my mind, the reason for such ban is that we do not know which country
structure binds our mind. When making policy for one we need to be in that
structure as virtual reality.
If we believe in both – then one opposes the
other when we make equal contribution to both. Equal Opposition in Parliament
is based on this fundamental that when we believe in a power through a different
form – we are Equal. Belief being exponential in power does not need large
numbers. Even One believer will ultimately achieve.
Today is the anniversary of the beginning of
Black July in 1983, which resulted in India’s indirect involvement in Sri Lanka
through training of Tamil youth whose emotions were challenged due to the
helplessness of Tamils in Colombo who became the targets of unruly civilians.
Truth being Truth – the ultimate outcome of this is written in the Sri Lankan
constitution as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The commonness
we have with the 13th Amendment to the American constitution is this
slave labour. The Tamil in this instance is the ‘Indian Tamil’ who was brought to Lanka as labourer in tea
estates. The Sinhalese took-over the Master positions after the departure of
the British. To think of other Tamils – especially those of the Jaffna kingdom would
be unpleasant to these Sinhalese. Even in politics – Tamils of North and East
are common but those of Hill country are different.
Interestingly – they join
the mainstream Sinhalese parties in preference to those parties dominated by
Northern politicians – who rely heavily on Jaffna Kingdom founded by Indian
Tamil Royalty.
As per the ‘logic’ of
the Sinhalese individual who has very little knowledge of North-Eastern heritage,
all Tamils are the parallels of African American labour class. They are
different to the Indigenous American who is the parallel of North-Eastern Tamil
of Lanka.
In both countries law enforced
Equality frees itself during Election time. Hence the ‘Black Lives Matter’
protests in USA and Sinhalese / Tamil Only claim in Sri Lanka. In USA they put them in
prison to work them. In Sri Lanka they ask them to ‘go back to India’. Black
Americans and Tamil Labour class respectively, accept that due to lack of sense
of ‘belonging’ in their current ‘homelands’. This happens to many Muslim
migrants in countries of European culture.
I myself ‘reacted’ to this
in 1998 when Australian politician Ms Pauline Hanson asked migrants who could
not assimilate to ‘go back home’. I myself went into my Sri Lankan professional
life where my apparent status was much higher than the one I was allocated at
the University of NSW. Going into that virtual reality was made easier by Ms
Pauline Hanson’s push factor – due to my existing condition – disappointment at
the University of NSW where this kind of political play within academics was
very active due to them living in their past. This risk prevails not only the
Tamil community that mentally lives off the past but also other migrant
communities strongly attached to the corpus of their culture.
By taking legal action
against my seniors – including the Prime Minister – I declared my belief as per
my mind and this resulted in my book ‘Naan Australian’. The pain I experienced
cured me of that ‘attachment to past’ which with time makes us bi-polar. Thus
desire becomes fear if it is not opposed and buried by different belief.
The need of Lankan
Tamils is this ‘different belief’ which will naturally oppose the government.
This requires also ‘self-isolation’ when there is risk of infection of war
thoughts. Government’s move to disregard the 13th Amendment is the
parallel of Appeal in a Court of Law.
The reason for this is explained as follows by his honour
Janak De Silva as follows in the Prescriptive Title case in relation to our Colombo
land:
The above structure to my mind led to
upholding Justice – which is the main purpose of the Judiciary. As stated
previously, it is not good enough to believe in ‘facts’. One who presents the ‘facts’
in a particular environment needs to believe also in the structure that that
environment is regulated by. If Gandhi had shared his facts in the language of
the Court he would have failed with the folks he was representing through politics.
I believed in my ownership as well as the law
of Prescription. I was open also to the claim of Mr Piyadasa that he occupied
the land for 30 years. I was however not open to the current respondent who
could afford Mr Faiza Musthapha PC who is presented as follows by Tobacco
Unmasked:
[Faisz Musthapha (sometimes referred to as
Faiz Musthapha), is a “President’s Counsel Learned in Law”, commonly known as
President’s Counsel (PC). It is a high-rank appointment for
Attorneys-at-Law in Sri Lanka coinciding the British ‘Queen’s Counsel’
appointments. PC appointments are made by the President of Sri Lanka based on
professional eminence and conduct. Musthapha is the son of S. M.
Musthapha, a lawyer from Kandy. In the media Musthapha family is referred to as
a family with “four generations of lawyers”.]
I have learnt through my Court cases including Sri Lankan cases that to
the extent a litigant believes in the law and makes the effort to present the
truth in the structure of the law, the matter gets exponential power which
opens up opportunities to participate at that level – at least mentally. This
however was NOT the case with the Respondents whom I never saw in Courts. One
who purchased from a Prescriptive title holder needs to inherit that belief
also.
The parallel of the purchase is
the election by votes in democracy and the parallel of Prescriptive rights is occupation
by ‘belief’ in the case of rebels. When Tamil politicians declared political
independence through Vaddukoddai Resolution – it confirmed their belief through
the political pathway. When armed rebels took-over leadership – it was a
different pathway and hence Rebels gradually became the Opposition of
politicians which led to assassination of the very holders of that Prescriptive
title. In the language of armed rebels
killing the opposition / enemy is victory. This was also the case with JVP in
South. Likewise in the current government where the PM is politician and the
President is leader of Armed forces. With executive powers of the Presidency
restored they would more actively oppose each other due to different pathways
of belief. One way to prevent this is to stay away from each other – each leading
only through his pathway of belief.
Duality such as Desire & Fear ; Gain & Pain is a fact of life at
the physical level. If we ‘avoid’ the unpleasant side – by abuse of current
power – we delay the manifestation of the ‘other’ side. But it does not go
away. The longer it is passive the stronger the return. The intellectual
pathway helps us to ‘see’ both at the same time. This is easier when we are
independent of our desires and gains.
Mr Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council presents his
assessment through his Colombo Telegraph article ‘Responsibility Of Majority To
Minority Cannot Be Shed '
[One of the noteworthy and less positive
features of the forthcoming elections is that none of the major political
parties has had much to say about how they propose to address the protracted
ethnic conflict. This is the main national question that has dogged
post-independence Sri Lanka for the past seven decades and led to war and
destruction and to human rights violations that continue to take a prominent
place in the international human rights discourse. In the face of elections,
the national political parties appear unwilling to address the challenge of
community rights posed by the TNA. In the alternative, they should at least
address the issue of equal citizenship posed by the people of the North…….
In
all the meetings we had in Jaffna, the issue of equal citizenship came up. The
community groups we met with spoke of the problems they faced due to shortage
and ramshackle state of the ferries and buses that served them, of the lack of
fresh water due to the problem of over extraction of water resources by outside
parties, of Indian and southern fishermen who had privileged access to fisheries
resources and sand mining by vested interests. They wanted the law and the
government to give them what they believed it gave people in the rest of the
country, and to protect them equally. It behooves the national political
parties contesting the elections to guarantee equal citizenship to all as the
basic and fundamental commitment in the government they hope to form ]
Equal citizenship exists not only by law due to the 13th
Amendment but also in a less visible way prior to that after the Vaddukoddai
Resolution 1976. If Tamils seek Equal goods and services as they think
Sinhalese have and it is delivered as part of the election promise – it is
likely to make us dependent on the Sinhalese government and that undoes the
structure that politicians developed through their sacrifices and armed
soldiers risked lives for. The more dependent we are of others for our
resources the more we would seek to ‘show’ outcomes. This is the greatest
weakness in armed activity – especially one that does not follow the common law
through which merit is to be calculated.
The way I see it – Tamil civilians in Northern Sri Lanka are heavily
dependent on the Diaspora which is in effectively the parallel of Indian Tamils
who remained in Sri Lanka due to financial independence/affluence. Not many
members of the Tamil Diaspora are truly independent at government level, in
their new homelands. They are effectively developing dependents so they could
play politics on behalf of the locals. That is what China does to South. Sri
Lanka is caught between the ethnic devil and the South China Sea.
I pay my respects to the victims of the 1983 riots invoked by the LTTE
who acted without the blessings of their Political leaders and executed by cowardly Sinhalese to whom all
Tamils were Indian coolies.
